Susan Blogs About Our Camino To Barcelos

Monday 18th May 2009 - 4:13pm Barcelos by Susan

Gotta be quick - internet time short!

In Barcelos, which is very, very pretty. Lots of lovely old architecture, trees and fountains and lots of cockerels.... Apparently they have the same legend as Santa Domingo on the Frances about the hanging pilgrim and the resurrecting hens which makes you wonder if they were very good at cooking their chicken meat on the pilgrim routes...

Got our credencials stamped in the fantastic church of Bom Jesus which was full of purple flowers and corn which Tim said looked like some kind of purple harvest festival...

Unfortunately there is no albergue in Barcelos so wew´re staying in an admittedly very nice place with a balcony view of the church. I say nice but for some reason there is no hot water and our Portugese is not really up to "your shower water is cold and a little bit brown..."
still twin bed very nice room with a view and strangely a union jack flag hanging from the balcony for 20euro each not so bad...

We had hoped to go a little further today to where my book tells me there should be an albergue in Portela but we have been assured by everyone under the sun that an albergue does not exist there. That makes it a terrifying 34km to Ponte De Lima!!! To be honest I´m not toally sure either of us will make it. If we do I think we´ll take a day off after.

I´m ok but i´m having a lot of trouble finding iron-rich vege food. The place i just had lunch in had run out of eggs! At least in spain you were always guaranteed tortilla. I thought I saw tortilla in a bar today but it turned out to be orange cake...!!!

Comment Added: Monday 18th May 2009 - 6:02pm "iron-rich? guess it just has to be chocolate then . . ."by mum

Comment Added: Monday 18th May 2009 - 6:29pm "Please don't try and walk 34 km! I've looked at the pictures it's uphill through a forest and you may get lost! You'll cripple yourselves for the rest of the journey. There is a village ajacent to Portela which is called Vitorino dos Piães - maybe you could find somewhere to stay in that area."by Mum

Comment Added: Wednesday 20th May 2009 - 4:42pm "there is nowhere to stop on this journey, except some very very expensive hotel-y type places. there are however a lots of bars conveniently placed for rest and recouperation stops... I would not reccomend anyone do this walk in one day though, having done it. make sure you are rich enough to stop in one of the expensive places. that said not even they are very well placed. there should be something in the middle i reckon but there wasn´t really, lots of villages but no sleeping places..."by Susan

Comment Added: Thursday 21st May 2009 - 2:40pm "There is this place:

http://www.quintadealbergaria.com/

which you pass just after Portela. 50 Euros a night for a double room - so not cheap but probably worth it to avoid injuries.

I found this on the CSJ Guide:

http://www.csj.org.uk/CamPort2009A4.doc"by Mum

Comment Added: Saturday 23rd May 2009 - 4:39pm "the quinta place was shut apparently some other pilgrims we met tried to stop there but had to get a taxi in the end..."by Susan